Because it’s the summer holidays, I have decided to indulge a little on the blog post. Every time I sit down to write a post about something more serious and educationally focussed, I decide that the post would be better timed outside of the summer window.
Already this week I have begun and rejected three PE-specific blog posts:
All of these blogs have been started and abandoned on the basis that they’re all a bit serious for an August read and I will come back to write all three to completion in the near future, stay tuned and subscribe!
But, for today, I want to open my heart a little. So many PE teachers now read this blog that it seems appropriate to be a little more personal with you. Some of you will know that my partner, Marta Soteras, is a Barcelona gal. Marta grew up in the Sants-Montjuïc area of the city, between the Olympic Stadium of 1992 and the world-famous Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona.
Marta and I have been together for 21 years and, whilst we have always lived in the UK, I have spent approximately 150 weeks in Catalonia visiting Marta’s family and friends as well as holidaying in some of our favourite parts of the region over those 21 years.
For those of you who don’t know Catalonia well, it is the region of north-eastern Spain between the Ebro delta, just north of Valencia, and the Pyrenees mountains.
Catalonia borders the regions of Valencia to the south, Aragon to the west and France and Andorra to the North. It has its own language, culture and cuisine as well as many other distinguishing factors. Today, in 2024, I consider Catalonia to be Catalan, Spanish and European and, in my opinion, Catalans should be proud of all three.
Catalan people, the stereotype goes, are a more serious type of Spaniard. They are fact- and history-loving: they love books and reading and they are serious about their language and culture. They pride themselves on being forward-thinking and are willing to challenge traditional assumptions whilst maintaining a strong sense of heritage and culture. Bullfighting, for example, is illegal in Catalonia (also in the Canary Islands) whilst remaining popular in many other regions of Spain.
Geographically, Catalonia seems to have it all. The Mediterranean coast offers incredible riches in terms of seafood, tourism and beauty. The volcanic and mountainous regions to the North are majestic and seemingly untouched. Inland areas like Lleida offer more arid conditions and the cities of Barcelona, Girona, Tarragona and others are rich with history, architecture and life.
I tend to spend my time in Catalonia in three main locations. During the winter, including over Christmas biannually, the four of us (Marta, Anna, Georgina and myself) visit Barcelona and spend as much time as possible with Marta’s parents. They live on Rambla Badal: a working-class area of the city between the famous centre and the airport.
In many ways, Marta and I have brought our kids up on that rambla (wide street with walking down the middle). We have scooted, skated, hopscotched, walked and played.
Secondly, we spend a lot of time in the Penedès area, where Marta’s elder sister lives. The Penedès will be known to many of you as the region of cava, the sparkling Catalan wine that –as I learned recently– is mostly made with the right combination of macabeu, xarel.lo and parellada grapes. Marta’s sister and her family live in a large village surrounded by vineyards and their home has amazing views of the mountain Montserrat, a mountain with very peculiar shapes and an even more peculiar past (if you Google Montserrat and World War II, you’ll see what I mean…).
We spend as much time as possible with Marta’s sister and family, often taking hikes, visiting cafes, visiting monuments and, recently, taking walking tours of interesting locations.
Thirdly, we visit the northern regions of Catalonia for the summer and we stay, a week at a time, in rural farmhouses that have been converted for modern living. In the last few weeks, for example, we stayed in the volcanic region of La Garrotxa.
We spent our week in complete isolation, by the little pool that has been built by the house, with little company apart from a tawny owl, the sargantana lizards and a few too many mosquitoes. We were in peace and tranquillity.
Since I met Marta, I have been learning to speak Catalan. It’s important to stress that Catalan and Spanish are different languages. The way I try to express this to British people who typically think that Catalan is a dialect or only a bit different to Spanish is that Catalan and Spanish, both romantic languages, are as similar as Spanish and Portuguese, say. They are from the same origin but differ in terms of vocabulary, grammar and, of course, history. These days I can probably flirt with the notion of “fluency” in Catalan. I am a fluent Catalan speaker. It feels odd to write that down somehow but, well, it’s true. I also speak solid Spanish, although my level is significantly below that of my Catalan. Both of our children, now 19 and 16,speak both English and Catalan as mother tongues and, a little like me, they have Spanish as a further, more passive language that they understand well. The way it works is that I always speak to the girls in English and Marta always speaks to them in Catalan. The only exceptions are when we are with other people such as my family or Marta’s family, when each parent will adopt the other’s language for social reasons.
The Catalan language is important to Marta and to Marta’s family. They are firmly Catalan-Spanish. That way round. Marta’s parents were both born after the Spanish Civil War and, with the Franco dictatorship firmly in place, neither was allowed to be registered with their actual Catalan names (Jordi, Marta’s dad, was legally ‘Jorge’ and Neus, Marta’s mum, was legally ‘Nieves’) because of restrictions of naming children in anything other than ‘proper’ Spanish names. Both, like everyone else in Catalonia, were banned from speaking Catalan in public but, of course, people spoke Catalan at home (sometimes after checking that the doors and windows were closed). Until their late 30s or early 40s, they were not able to write in their own language, as Catalan had not been taught at school when they were young and had only learnt to write in Spanish. Therefore, the fight to be, to speak, to write and to sing in Catalan is so important to them that I actually find it hard to empathise directly. For me, my Englishness has never been threatened and, therefore, I can’t feel about the English language like they do about the Catalan language. Catalan, to them, is survival. I respect this and, to be honest, it has been one of the biggest drivers of me learning Catalan so well. The response I get from Catalan people when they learn that I am a foreigner who speaks Catalan is incredibly rewarding. They are grateful. Really, really grateful. Then, when I share a few additional details with them, they literally flip out. I release the gold in this order:
This third fact is huge for Catalan speakers. They typically assume that I speak Catalan as a nice gesture because I previously had learned Spanish. Any foreigners speaking Catalan are normally in this bracket. The fact that I, from their perspective, chose Catalan first, is overwhelming. So much so that –and I know this is a little wrong– I am able to manipulate the scenario. This is how it works:
At this point, prices tumble, bills don’t need paying anymore and the free stuff comes out as a matter of course. This summer, for example, I was in an art shop in Girona and I really loved a piece that was aqua porcelain squares set on canvas. It was expensive! It would have been a massive, once-in-a-lifetime purchase. Georgina and I followed the structure above (which we don’t do cynically, I promise) and the artist and owner of the business took me by the upper arm to the back of the shop and said to me something along the lines of ‘Listen, if it’s a bit pricey, don’t worry because I have different prices for tourists and for locals and then there are other prices for English people that have learned our language.’ I was actually a bit scared. I didn’t buy it but it shows the power of being a foreign Catalan speaker in Catalonia.
As Marta and I ponder our futures, and as our daughters reach and approach adulthood, we both believe that Catalonia will become, at least, our co-home. Marta has now spent more than half of her life living in the UK and she needs to be nearer her family more often. I am in love with Catalonia and I want to visit every town and every village and really get under the skin of the region. I want to understand the history and origins of the language, culture and nation better than I do now and I also want to take my written Catalan, which is almost non-existent apart from a few family WhatsApp group chats, to a really high level. I also want to improve my Castilian Spanish, which is currently –to be honest– not great. I am not convinced Marta and I will ever live permanently in Catalonia. I can’t imagine us leaving the UK if our children are living there but we may spend far more time there as the years progress. I am looking forward to it.
So, next time you decide to visit Barcelona, Girona, the Costa Brava, The Costa Dorada or any other part of Catalonia, I want you to remember this post. I want you to notice Catalonia and Catalan as a culture and language. You will never regret doing this.
Thanks for reading.
James